


The Cavalier

by Sauronix



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Dancing, Flash Fic, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Goofing Off By the Campfire, M/M, Mild Angst, Post-Game, Upbeat Dancing, Waltzing Lessons, slow dance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-01 11:02:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12703686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sauronix/pseuds/Sauronix
Summary: Without so much as aHello, Ignis, Noct lets his overloaded backpack slip from his shoulder, and the sound of his books dropping onto the marble floor echoes in the soaring vaults of the Citadel ballroom. Then he plops himself down next to it, sprawled in the fractured, pink-tinted light projected by the stained glass windows.How predictable. Ignis is no stranger to the prince’s moods. He is a sixteen-year-old, after all, and a particularly sulky one at that, always chafing under Ignis’s tutelage. But he’s glowering harder than usual today.Sighing, Ignis pushes his spectacles up his nose with his index finger. “You know, prostrating yourself like this won’t get you out of your lessons.”Three times Ignis danced with his friends—once to teach, once for fun, and once in love. A three-part flash fic.





	1. Contretemps

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UberGoldy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UberGoldy/gifts).



Without so much as a _Hello, Ignis_ , Noct lets his overloaded backpack slip from his shoulder, and the sound of his books dropping onto the marble floor echoes in the soaring vaults of the Citadel ballroom. Then he plops himself down next to it, sprawled in the fractured, pink-tinted light projected by the stained glass windows.  
  
How predictable. Ignis is no stranger to the prince’s moods. He is a sixteen-year-old, after all, and a particularly sulky one at that, always chafing under Ignis’s tutelage. But he’s glowering harder than usual today.  
  
Sighing, Ignis pushes his spectacles up his nose with his index finger. “You know, prostrating yourself like this won’t get you out of your lessons.”  
  
“Wanna bet?”  
  
“Yes,” Ignis says crisply. He presses play on the cordless stereo on the stool next to him, and the first brisk strains of classical violin music swell from of the speakers. “Your father insisted I teach you how to waltz, so that is what I intend to do. Or would you rather embarrass yourself at the gala next week?”  
  
Noct grumbles, but he rolls and pushes himself to his feet when Ignis folds his arms over his chest.  
  
“I’ll take the lead first,” Ignis says, holding out his left hand, “just to show you how it’s done. Then we’ll switch.”  
  
Reluctantly, Noct takes his hand. Ignis places his other on Noct’s upper back and steps closer, bringing them almost toe to toe.  
  
“Put your hand on my shoulder,” he instructs.  
  
Noct rubs his palm on his pant leg before he does as he’s asked, but Ignis can still feel the damp heat of his skin through the dress shirt he’s wearing. Is the prince nervous? They’re close, certainly, as close as two friends can be, but Ignis can’t remember the last time they touched each other beyond a pat on the back or a fist-bump. He has to bite back a laugh as he watches Noct look everywhere but at him.  
  
“Now, then.” Ignis clears his throat. “As I step forward with my left foot, you’ll step back with your right. Shall we?”  
  
Noct nods, glancing up at Ignis. “Sure.”  
  
They step together, more graceful than Ignis expected. He thought Noct would trip over his own feet, or move a half-second later than Ignis, but he doesn’t. Gangly though Noct may be, perhaps there’s something of a dancer in him yet.  
  
“Good,” Ignis says. “Now I’ll step to my right and you’ll step to your left. Then you’ll bring your right foot to join the other. Understood?”  
  
Noct nods, and they try it. The prince keeps his eyes on their shoes, frowning as he tracks their movements. So far, so good. He’ll be sweeping the noblewomen of Lucis off their feet in no time.  
  
“Let’s do it again,” Ignis says.  
  
“C’mon, Specs, I get it,” Noct groans.  
  
Ignis raises an eyebrow at him. “You’ve hardly begun. Now, on my count.”  
  
Noct grumbles again, but he allows Ignis to talk them through three box steps, adjusting his footwork whenever Ignis points out his errors. Within a few minutes, Noct’s actually keeping pace with him, matching Ignis’s movements rather than responding to them. And he’s grinning, his eyes bright behind the dark hair hanging in his face. It’s been so long since Noct looked at him like that.  
  
“Would you like to lead?” Ignis asks, a little breathless.  
  
“Sure.” Noct steps forward at once, urging Ignis back, persuasive despite his smaller stature. “Think I’ve got the moves, Specs?”  
  
“Oh, yes,” Ignis says wryly, “you're ever so graceful. You've certainly charmed me.”  
  
Noct actually laughs at that. Ignis allows himself a smile, remembering the boy who offered his hand so shyly when Ignis first came to Insomnia all those years ago—the boy who curled up on his shoulder for a bedtime story, and who climbed into his arms to take refuge from a nightmare.  
  
If Noct steps on his foot once or twice, well, he doesn’t say anything. There will be plenty of time to correct that later.


	2. Divertissement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompto convinces Ignis to dance one night at a haven. It helps to listen to this while you read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTH71AAxXmM

They’ve barely finished setting up camp before Prompto fires up a music application on his phone and plays the most headache-inducing electronica Ignis has ever heard. He winces as he stirs the garlic sauce on the stove. It isn’t the sort of music he’d listen to willingly, but the gods only know it’s been forced upon him more times than he can count in all the hours they’ve spent on the road.  
  
“Seriously, Prompto?” Gladio asks from where he’s enjoying a beer in one of their folding chairs.  
  
Prompto folds his arms and nods vehemently. “These woods are creepy. The music helps, okay?”  
  
Ignis disagrees, and so must Gladio, if his grumbling is any indication. But Gladio doesn’t demand Prompto shut it off, so neither does Ignis. He focuses instead on preparing their meal, tuning out the cacophony as he fries a slab of bulette flank on their camping stove. It almost works.  
  
Until the electronica turns to an upbeat pop rock number, and Prompto whoops in joy.  
  
“I love this song!” He grabs Noct’s hands and tries to tug him into the firelight, but Noct resists. “Aw, c’mon, Noct! Just this once.”  
  
Noct shakes his head. “No way. I don’t dance.”  
  
Pouting, Prompto turns to Gladio, but Gladio crosses his arms and glares so hard a vein throbs in his temple.  
  
Ignis already knows what to expect before Prompto looks at him, eyes pleading. And he’s about to decline, to use their half-cooked meal as an excuse, but his body acts before his brain has a chance to catch up. Setting aside the spoon he was using to stir the sauce, he takes Prompto’s outstretched hands and tentatively moves his feet to the drumbeat. Prompto grins and tugs his arms one at a time, over and over, until they have a rhythm going.  
  
From the corner of his eye, he sees Gladio and Noct exchange a glance. Small wonder—he and Prompto must look like fools, shimmying together around their campsite. But it’s difficult to care, not when it’s been so long since he last let music possess him like this. Months. Perhaps even years.  
  
Laughing, he lets Prompto spin him, and then he works his hips and shoulders and head into his movements, sinuous, acting on instinct rather than thought. When Prompto kicks, Ignis mirrors him. When he hops, Ignis does too. He has no way of knowing how ridiculous he really looks. And that’s fine. He’s allowed to look ridiculous every so often. Right now, the only reality is Prompto’s smiling face, and the sweaty hands grasping his own.  
  
Then the music tapers to silence, and as Ignis and Prompto pull apart, Noct and Gladio burst into applause. One of them—Ignis isn’t sure which—lets out a wolf whistle. Laughing again, Ignis pulls off his glasses and cleans them with the hem of his shirt, sweat dripping into his eyes.  
  
“Shit, Iggy, I didn’t know you had moves like that,” Gladio says.  
  
Ignis smiles and gets back to stirring the sauce, his face warm. He didn’t know he could dance like that, either. “Well, I suppose I’m just full of surprises, aren’t I?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Divertissement" means diversion. Next up: At the end of it all, Gladio and Ignis share a slow dance.


	3. Adagio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the end of it all, Gladio and Ignis share a dance.

Ignis doesn’t hear Gladio call his name—not the first time, certainly not the second, nor the third. He doesn’t notice Gladio’s footsteps approaching him, or the heat of his body as he stands next to the couch where Ignis sits. It takes a warm hand on his shoulder to snap him out of his torpor.  
  
Even then, he comes back to himself slowly. Gladio’s voice cuts through first, and then the song that’s playing on the radio—a bittersweet plinking of piano keys, accompanied by a woman’s smoky, haunted vocals. He must have turned it on before he lost himself in his memories.  
  
“You okay?” Gladio asks.  
  
Ignis nods. “Yes. Yes. Of course.”  
  
Gladio grunts. His hand rises from Ignis’s shoulder to stroke his cheek. “This ain’t healthy, Iggy.”  
  
Then he moves away. Ignis hears the scrape of hooks on the curtain rod as Gladio opens the drapes, only a split second before he feels the warmth of daylight on his face. Instinctively, he turns away. The sun is only a reminder that Noct is gone, and that he took Ignis’s purpose with him to the grave. At times, when life after Noct hardly seems worth living, he longs for the darkness.  
  
Gladio senses it. Ignis knows he does. He never says anything, but he hovers, as if his constant presence can stop Ignis from doing something unthinkable.  
  
“C’mon.” Gladio’s hand takes his elbow, gentle yet firm. “Up.”  
  
Ignis rises, reluctant if unresisting, and lets Gladio loop his arms around his waist. It’s been a long while since Gladio touched him this way. In the darkness, they took the first fumbling steps toward something more, but Noct’s death stranded them in the lacuna between love and friendship. Ignis recognizes the uncertainty in Gladio’s every interaction with him. It echoes his own feelings—of wanting more, but not knowing how to ask for it.  
  
“Talk to me,” Gladio murmurs, his lips grazing Ignis’s forehead as he starts to sway them both to the music.  
  
Ignis closes his eyes. “What about?”  
  
“You know what.”  
  
The _what_ isn’t the problem; rather, it’s the _how_. It would break Gladio’s heart to hear the world has lost all meaning for Ignis. Gladio would try to fix it, to make Ignis whole again, even in vain.  
  
“I taught Noct to waltz,” he finally says, because he has to say something. “At first, he resisted. You know how Noct was. But then he laughed as he took the lead—and for what? I taught him, but he’ll never dance at a gala or woo a wife.”  
  
“Iggy—”  
  
“Everything I worked for meant nothing, in the end.” Ignis presses his face into Gladio’s shoulder, his throat going tight, his eyes stinging. “I devoted my life to a king destined to die. It was useless. All useless.”  
  
Gladio never stops moving. He just holds Ignis closer, rocking him as he’d soothe a child, his thumb stroking the small of Ignis’s back.  
  
“It wasn’t useless, Iggy,” he says. “You think Noct learned how to be strong and kind and brave all by himself? Nah. That was you. _You_ taught him that.”  
  
“I showed him how to make peace with his death, you mean.”  
  
“Stop it, Ignis. None of that was your fault. You didn’t know.” Gladio rests his cheek on Ignis’s head, sighing. “You did everything you could for him, but he wasn’t the only one who needed you.”  
  
“I can’t imagine who else would…”  
  
Ignis trails off as Gladio’s fingers curl under his chin, tipping his face up.  
  
“I love you,” Gladio says as he brushes their noses together, gentle and affectionate. “You’re the only thing keepin’ me going. I need you to come back to me.”  
  
Ignis nods, tears pricking the corner of his remaining eye. No matter how much it means to him to hear Gladio say it, a confession of love isn’t enough to compensate for the loss of self he’s suffered.  
  
But it’s a start. There’s no one on Eos who understands him better than Gladio, no one else who carries the same pain and confusion inside him. They can’t go back, and things will never be the way they were, but they’re together now. They haven’t lost everything that matters. Perhaps they can help each other find their way again.  
  
So Ignis puts his arms around Gladio’s shoulders and draws him closer, until they’re cheek to cheek. “Dance with me,” he murmurs.  
  
And Gladio obliges.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on the chapter title: Adagio means "slowly."
> 
> Thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> In dancing terms, the cavalier is the male partner of the lead ballerina. UberGoldy asked me to write a fic about Ignis dancing with each of the boys, for various reasons and under certain circumstances—and so, Ignis is their cavalier.
> 
> (A note on the chapter title: Contretemps means "against time.")
> 
> As always, kudos and/or comments are much appreciated.


End file.
